Monday, April 21, 2008

Today Charlie took his regular walk through the neighborhood with his dad. And not fifteen minutes of peace had passed me by before I heard a loud and highly excitable knocking on my sliding glass door. I walked over to find him standing on the other side of the glass with a GIANT one of these in his hand.

It was missing a tail (thanks to my dog) and seemed a little more than put out by my sons affections. Now, as much in favor of rational observation as I am; please understand that I loathe lizards, snakes, and anything else with horns, scales, fangs, and a need to abandon its offspring thirty seconds after birth.

Me: Sweet Jesus! What the hell is that thing?!?

Charlie: It's a Horny.

And he just stood there holding this thing up to me all confused by my reaction like, Jeese you're reallyflippin out. There, there, you just need me to come a little closer, you know, so you can see that he's really cute, and friendly, and would make a really perfect pet. And as he got closer the seven-year old girl in me screamed even louder. And ya! It was arguably the ugliest sounding scream in the history of the world. So frickin what? Have you ever been that close to a horny? Well? And the worst part is I couldn't stop long enough to make a thoughtful comment. Way to go Ms. "I wanna be a rational person." Little Ms. "I simply LOVE LOVE LOVE Nature."

Just what was I so disgusted by? What is wrong with me? What is it with scaled creatures and us girls? And I know its not just me. I've read about this phenomenon before in Steven Pinkers book called 'The Blank Slate.'

Steven Pinker relates the theory from evolutionary psychologythat the emotion disgust evolved to keep us away from objects that can carry orpass on diseases. Instead of having to eat something rotten, diseased, or wormridden, and then vomiting violently, our big brains let us merely look at theobject and feel the reaction, sometimes so severely that we react as if we hadtouched or eaten it.

After I stared at both of them through the glass door for a minute or two contemplating an escape route, I tried (really hard) to remind myself that I want to encourage my kids to discover new things and learn about them, especially in nature. Sure there was a small part of me interested in the creature, but it was a very small part.

As he held this horned lizard up towards my face emphatically pleading with me, “Please mommy, he needs water and a good home!” my heart really softened up in spite of my revulsion. I wanted to assist him in his pursuit, but my brain just kept repeating ABOUT. TO. LOSE. MY. SHIT.

Did I really think that poor little injured reptile was going to crawl up my leg, give me an STD, drink all the wine, and never call again? Really? Apparently so. And now I am left to deal with the sad truth--I am irrationally disgusted by horniness.